A Healthy Sexuality

We are sexual beings.  From birth to death.  And from birth to death our sexuality impacts our wellness. From the broad picture related to our sexual identity and orientation, to the more subtle sensual perceptions of the world around and inside us perceived through our six senses.

The influences of the world on us, from birth to death pose deep impressions on our sexuality.  The way our parents are in their sexual selves (as their parents before them), the religious/spiritual/ education indoctrination we receive through our continuum, the ethnic culture we harken from as well as the general culture at large.  We are saturated by these influences (often distorted, superficial, negative).  In our nature's quest to heal this misinformation as adults, our chosen partners affirm and reinforce those indoctrinations magnifying the messages learned (in your face "heal this already!").  And luckily sometimes, our partners are instrumental in healing those deeply ingrained messages.  And to complicate things further, our learned and healed sexuality changes.  It changes as our cells and bodies change, as our hormone levels soar and drop off.  It changes as we change.  This happens because we are our sexuality and our sexuality is us.

Our sexual selves are not represented anywhere but in ourselves.  Movies, music, media, commercials, clothing designers have always tried to depict it; but they never are near accurate even in broad, generalized terms, because it's an intensely personal and intimate experience that is as unique as the singular person that is each one of us.  These external attempts at commercializing the sexual experience are coarse at best.  The subtle and sublime truth of a person's sexuality is connected to our qi, our prana, our subtle energies which coarse through our bodies and our layered energy fields.  Mostly, this subtle experience is lost on us, as we are not even aware of it half the time.  One of the reasons why sex attracts us, is that in our depths, we need to experience this finer energy in ourselves, and the possibility of exchanging it with another.

Recognizing that the first 50 years of life is an organic quest in manifesting and externalizing just about everything to the -nth degree, including our understanding of our own personal sexuality.  And recognizing the following 50 years, there is a natural quest in doing quite the opposite.  Whereas the early decades are a movement out, the later decades are a movement in.  Maturity makes it possible for sexuality to be energetically layered, subtle and more fully embodied.  Because sexuality, the movement of its energy are series of moments, ever in flux, it would be difficult to understand this unless you were there, at that age, in that moment. I remember in my late 20's an older woman mentor telling me this.  And I remember not having a clue, not being able to imagine what she was describing.  My youthful self imagined and projected the loss for all that spark and flame to something that sounded opaque and boring. Wow.  What's the saying? Love/life is lost on youth?  And so it is.  One's future sexual self is an unknown, veiled by the immediacy of the present.  Or is it?

And what does this have to do with health and wellness?

Because we are sexual beings in our nature, understanding and nourishing the interior aspect of what this is for us is important.  Those that are celibate, experiencing a fallow or inactive period in their sex life, are still sexual beings.  If an appreciation and nourishing of this subtle self isn't nurtured, human perspective on sexuality ultimately becomes distorted, frustrated and agonized.  Living an even sometime tortured existence in this way negatively impacts our health and well being.  How do we nurture sexual health?

Sexuality is not limited to the bedroom or sex act.  Sexuality is not limited in external connection to self or other.  Sexuality can't be compartmentalized nor appropriated into a neat forum; it is pervasively in our being.  Cultivating a layered awareness during our life's spectrum of the movement of one's qi, prana and sexual energy-- outside the bedroom, is key.  Normally, we don't identify sexual energy as such unless it is overtly sexual.  Sexual energy is Big.  It covers a lot of ground in subtle to gross measure.

A frequent connection to our six senses invites us into the sensual world, which opens the sexual energy field in oblique ways.  We are surrounded by the essential nature in all things: art, architecture, flow and movement in ordinary life, which are reminders of our own energetic flow.  Not acting on chemistry with others, but taking stock, noticing the movement, appreciating the flow is a way to bring an intimate awareness to one's sexuality.  This requires a maturity in self, and subsequently, these types of practices internalize the life of our sexuality, allow it to flourish on a deeper level.  It's a type of self-nourishment.  It opens our world.

As young children and even as young adults we explore our sexuality from a more pure perspective.  As mature adults, the search continues, adjusting to our more grounded understanding of ourselves and our energies and how this impacts our sense of wellness, our health and our being.

Courage, Confidence and Wellness

We spend a lifetime searching for balance.  We learn about a new piece of dietary information; we try it out.  Science comes up with new info about our body's function; we consider this, perhaps, by modifying our behavior.  We accumulate information and try to verify an approach to our own wellness through the decades.  And if we're lucky,  something settles in us that isn't so reactive.  It's hoped for—that we become discerning in our responses to new information, not jumping from one new fangled idea or another in a quest to be healthier.  This would go for a spiritual growing up as well.  In all of this, what is the difference between adapting and adopting?

Courage and a Self Confidence is required. Through our continuum, there is a time to follow and "obey".  There is also a time to find the courage not to look toward outward "authority",  but believe enough in what one has experienced, gathered information-wise and trust in one's own maturation process.  Or, maybe it's about following the intuitive messages even though all that outward advice makes sense.  A reliable practice of self-awareness will sort the false impulse from the true impulse.  It is a growing up of sorts;  a confidence in one's own perceptions, knowledge/understanding base and the experience of having navigated dark corners before.  It's a trust in speaking up, being adversarial when necessary, being close to one's own truth.  This doesn't negate being open to other information or an other.  It just means owning one's own grounded material in what Is.

This sometimes means finding one's own language within the known culture, whether it be in spiritual practice or wellness lingo.  Human nature makes us prone to being static in our approach, clinging to what has been known, whether it be language, way of understanding, an approach to a spiritual or wellness practice, or dietary and movement habits.  Because everything is changing all the time, being light "on our feet" is necessary.  A regular practice of entering into unknown territory, making efforts that are not familiar, or may be somewhat uncomfortable and foreign.  Becoming familiar with how—and where—I recede and retreat into habits that aren't useful is part of the self awareness practice.  If one has relied primarily on external authority to direct one's efforts in the past, claiming a semblance of one's own "master" is initially a rocky road.  It's sort of like being 20 years old again, finding your young adult legs under yourself, making first time life decisions, leaning into resistance and not capitulating.  It's possible to boldly strike out, to find the courage to be enough where you are, recognize your needs, and make a demand of yourself or of others to meet those needs.

It is true there is an "action" component to all this.  But mostly, it's sublimely internal. The action has turned inward, hence, doesn't have to be externally manifested to the extent it has been in previous decades.  Stepping up to (the responsibility of) oneself minimizes confusion.  Confidence is confidence, not arrogance.  Courage is courage, not being cavalier.  It's clear.  Understanding and living these differences makes us our own leader, mentor, guru.  And if we somehow find we have trickled our way into arrogance or have become cavalier, that's ok.  Because we have, at our foundation, taken responsibility and owned what is.  So we own that, and we mindfully work with that manifestation.  It's a beautiful thing. No longer are we afraid of being—or experiencing ourselves—as arrogant.  We are more afraid of not seeing what is.  We are more afraid of being static and internally atrophied.  Scary personality portraits of old are now interesting, beguiling, surprising and refresh our perspective.

"To thine own self be true." Hamlet, Wm Shakespeare

“And you will know the truth, and that truth will set you free.”  John 8:32